


As All Things Must, We'll Turn Back To Dust

by planetarypoe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker
Genre: F/F, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), M/M, Post-TRoS, Slow Burn, Stormtrooper Rebellion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21978949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/planetarypoe/pseuds/planetarypoe
Summary: “Are you receiving? I'm not here to fight, I have a message for the Resistance, we're not fighting, we... need your help.” The words taste bitter. She had never thought she'd come to this. Begging.The comms hiss. “What kind of help?”Fucking impatient. Doray gracefully settles her sleek fighter among the battered freighters and cruisers before deigning to reply.“This is Flight Officer Doray Ourls, formerly of the Final Order. My captain and her stormtrooper platoons request your assistance in battling those whose loyalties remain... unchanged.”When Captain Majod sends ace TIE pilot Doray to the Resistance with a message, Finn's more than happy to help fellow ex-stormtroopers off Exegol (but really he just needs a moment to talk to Rey).Poe's been fighting for so long that this little bit more shouldn't be hard, but he's barely managing to keep going.And Rey is still reeling from all she's learned and seen, afraid of her own power and uncertain of what to do next.It's time to finish the war. To get through this, they have to have each other's backs. Easier said than done, when they're all being pulled in different directions and every day brings a new fight.
Relationships: Finn & Jannah (Star Wars), Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Finn & Rose Tico, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey & Rose Tico, Poe Dameron & Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey & Rose Tico, Zorii Bliss & Poe Dameron
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

“We're trapped,” says the Vice Admiral. Majod just catches it over the din – there's alarms for fire, navigation system loss, proximity; the constant howling and booming from the storm outside, and everyone is yelling, trying to figure out what's happening.

They're trapped. That's what's happening.

Majod shakes her head, as if that will clear it. She thinks. The signal tower must have gone down, taking any chance of them getting off this stars-forsaken planet with it. The Supreme Leader underestimated the strength of the Resistance. She can hardly blame him, they've been running on fumes for the past two years. No-one could have expected the sky to fill with vessels, bombers and overpowered freighters. It should have been impossible.

But it had happened.

“-we continue as planned?” someone asks the Vice Admiral, who turns on his heel, glowering over the colonel foolish enough to ask. His cruel face combined with his sheer height have enough power to make Majod take a smart step backwards, although his cold fury is not even directed at her.

“And how,” he snarls, “do you suggest we do that?”

The colonel visibly gulps, but the Vice Admiral ploughs right over him. “You intend to lead the securing of the free planets with TIE fighters alone? Or do you have plans to restore this fleet? Or recalibrate the orbital maneuvers by hand? Because without them you'll be crushed to death the moment you leave atmosphere.”  
_Then we're staying here,_ thinks Majod, and sees the thought cross the Vice Admiral's face at the same time. They can't leave. There's millions of soldiers on thousands of ships.

And they're going to starve to death.

“If you find an answer, do what you like,” says the Vice Admiral. “You could destroy every planet in the galaxy that allows even a whisper of resistance. Fix the fleet, carry the banner of the Final Order through the stars, or sit on your arse and watch holos while your ship crumbles around you. Now get out of my way.”

The colonel scurries away. The Vice Admiral stalks past Majod, heading for the door of the bridge, but he's not distracted enough to not feel her gaze.

“Back to your station, captain,” he snaps, and she turns to her screen at once, although what exactly she's supposed to be doing is anyone's guess. Her job would have been co-ordinating the squadrons of stormtroopers once they reached the enemy planets. She had been expecting a quiet ride until they arrived, then a role overseeing the occupation and ensuring the power of the First – the Final Order.

Instead she has chaos, and a complete disregard for sentient life, apparently. The Order had promised power, but this is not power. If you kill everyone who breathes, what do you have left to rule over? Fear is necessary, yes, but the outright destruction of hundreds of worlds is unfathomable. It borders on insane: killing billions just to deal with a handful of rebels. Her leaders had simply intended to kill innocents, and keep killing and calling it victory, with no method or tactics or sense of honour. There's no logic to these plans; that's become clear with the destruction of swathes of their fleet.

The Vice Admiral sees it too. The coward is fleeing. He's going to find the nearest shuttle and fling himself away. She had seen it written all over him, his eyes calculating where he might be unknown, his hands twitching at the anticipation of flying through the maelstrom, the disgust in the curl of his lips at still having to deal with lesser beings.

He plans to run away and leave the rest of them to die. The Final Order crumbles around them. The thought rises: _he is no leader._ He never was. Whoever comes next will only be a different boot upon their backs, and will lead them into glorious murder and a dishonourable death. There is no longer a place for men like him.

She takes a breath, and steps away from her station. She moves determinedly, shoulders back, and doesn't stop. A stormtrooper has fallen and leans awkwardly against the wall. She swipes up their blaster without breaking stride and slips through the blast doors before they close behing the traitor.

“Vice Admiral,” she calls. She wants to see his face. Shooting a man in the back would feel almost as cowardly as his abandoning.

He turns, not bothering to disguise his expression of irritation, which quickly changes to surprise when the blaster shot hits him square in the chest. His face does not change again as she walks past, dropping the blaster by the body.

A plan is forming in Majod's mind. Her fellow officers will be persuaded, she thinks, and if not, it's been so long since any of them saw combat that they will be easily subdued. Her stormtroopers will want to live, she expects. She believes that they are loyal enough to her. She has been a severe, but never a cruel or unfair captain, and that will be enough to make most of them listen to her when she explains that the Final Order has fallen, and that new arrangements must be found. However, she's not foolish enough to think that the propaganda the infantry are bombarded with every day hasn't had its effects, and is already counting those fiery zealots whose loyalties might remain with a dead empire. They'll have to be dealt with.

 _But first of all_ , she thinks, _I need a pilot_.

***

Finn has never felt like this. Time blurs and stretches. People hug him, congratulate him, smile at him. He watches others find each other, laugh and embrace. They light fires and sit, breathing for the first time in years. For some of them, maybe the first time in their lives. His heart is in freefall and there's a glow in his chest. It's a warmth so fierce it's threatening to burst out and light up the jungle, a love so pure it must be shining out of his face. He thinks, _this is what freedom feels like,_ and when he catches sight of Rey he feels like he's soaring.

She sees him at the same time and instantly moves towards him, her own grin as wide as the darkening sky. Although she's cleaned her face, the shadow of whatever happened on Exegol remains in the crease of her lips, the furrow in her brow. Finn wants to help her smooth it out and see her really smile again, to tell her everything. When he felt her die, it had torn a hole in him. He didn't know how she'd come back. All he knew was he'd do anything to stop her being hurt again, and that he would never be more relieved than he had been when he'd realised she had returned.

He had asked her, before, what happened. She had frozen for a moment, and squeezed his hand. “Another time,” she'd said.

“Finn,” she says now. Her eyes are dark and understanding. Finn folds her into his arms and feels home. There are no words to describe their bond, they both know it, and so neither speak. They simply stand, holding each other. Free. Together.

“Rey,” he says, after a long time, still hugging her close. She listens, her hair soft under his fingers.

“Rey,” he says again, and takes a breath. This shouldn't be so hard. She understands. She feels it, too. He'll say it, and she'll grin, and she'll ask him -

The distant scream of a TIE fighter splits the sky and they leap apart, both reaching for weapons, but Finn had put his blaster down, earlier. He didn't think he'd have to use it. They should be safe. They finished it. A dread settles in his gut, snuffing out the glow, but Rey's ready with her lightsaber, and he feels safer with her at his side. Her eyes flicker.

“Let's go,” he says, and she nods. Side by side, they move into the jungle, and follow the fight.

***

Doray tries the comms again. No-one's listening, but the dregs of the Resistance – no, out of nothing, they're more than that, this hatch-patch army from nowhere and everywhere – will not fail to notice a TIE fighter dropping in on them, and those pilots are just as trigger happy as any First Order she'd ever met. She continues her descent, but settles her hands around her own gunning controls with a slow, calm exhale. They're trusting, she tells herself, stupidly trusting, her commanders had always told her. The Resistance would accept any help from anyone that would keep them going a couple days longer, at any condition. They'd fold defectors into their ranks without blinking an eye, yet couldn't understand why they kept losing with an undisciplined, unpredictable army.

And anyway, Captain Majod wouldn't send her if she didn't think it would work.

“You have to be kidding,” she'd said when the captain had sought her out in the hangar, so shocked by the orders that she'd forgotten she was speaking to a superior officer.

The captain had just looked at her. Right. No-jokes Majod.

“Captain,” she said, “I don't understand. You're asking me to betray all we've worked for. All we've built. You want me to walk to the enemy's door and... plead.”

“Yes,” said Majod. Stars, the woman was frustrating. She kept just _looking_ at Doray. Considering.

“The Final Order is decimated,” she said. Unease began to curl in Doray's stomach.

“Then we keep fighting. Scramble the TIEs, we can-”

“No,” said Majod.

Doray didn't know what to say to that. Her hands were restless. She longed to be in her ship, wheeling through the air, her shots landing true. She wanted to attack the enemy, hit them hard where it hurt, and take them out once and for all. It had been a daydream that brought her comfort in the past. The fact that it was impossible was suddenly disturbing. They'd always survive, somehow.

“This is not an order, officer.”

Doray blinked.

“Our leaders are gone. Their plans were not feasible, and that has resulted in their end. Don't think of this as joining the enemy. I see our collaboration with them as the most logical way to survive the next week. And I see you as our best chance of reaching them.”

Doray's mind was reeling.

“The magnetic fields are difficult to navigate. Your simulation scores have been consistently excellent. I am asking you to take my message to the Resistance, and yes, ask them for help. I don't intend to die here, and I don't think you do either.”

Her gaze pierced right into Doray. She swallowed. TIE pilots might have a reputation for being semi-suicidal fanatics, but Majod was right. She didn't want to die, and the cause she'd fought for for years had gone, as quickly as a fuel line catching. She'd met the captain's eye, and nodded.

“Thank you,” Majod said. “On your way, captain.”

The fact that Majod is counting on her, had chosen her of all the pilots, might have been more reassuring if she wasn't also depending on the Resistance to save them. This mismatched group of rebels might be naïve fools, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be prepared for all eventualities. Nothing on the comms, still, but she's catching smooth bellies and ungainly angles of ships between the trees below her. She's close.

She just gets a glimpse of a Hammerhead Corvette sitting in a larger clearing when the first shot comes. Her shields can take it, and she fights the instinct to fire back but snarls. Why don't people listen?

She slows down, and another shot catches her left wing, and two more fly past her.

“Morons,” she mutters, and reluctantly relinquishes the cannon triggers to fiddle with the comms. One more chance.

“Hold your fire,” she says. “Are you receiving?”

Two more shots, one finding its aim.

“Are you receiving? I'm not here to fight, I have a message for the Resistance, we're not fighting, we... need your help.” The words taste bitter. She had never thought she'd come to this. Begging.

The comms hiss.

“-receiving you, what's your message?”

“I'm landing,” she says, scouring the ground for a spot between the disorganised, non-uniform mess of ships.

“What kind of help?”

Fucking impatient. Doray gracefully settles her sleek fighter among the battered freighters and cruisers before deigning to reply.

“This is Flight Officer Doray Ourls, formerly of the Final Order. My captain requests your assistance in battling those whose loyalties remain... unchanged.”

She takes off her mask and powers down the engines, unstrapping herself. When she leaps from her ship, three uniformed soldiers already have blasters pointed at her and a crowd is half gathering around the enemy ship.

She rolls her eyes.

“We don't have time for distrust,” she says.

The Resistance seem uncertain still, and one half lowers their blaster.

Doray sets her jaw.

“You saw what happened! You did your blasted job, and now there's thousands of Destroyers left, millions of soldiers, trapped on a planet which is practically unreachable, and they don't want to die there. Isn't that _your_ job? Helping people who need it?”

A human man pushes through the crowd, his dark skin gleaming from the heat and humidity. He looks at her, and she feels uncomfortable at the scrutiny. The First- the _Final_ Order wasn't a place where you wanted to stand out.

“You're from the Order?” he asks.

“Flight Officer Doray Ourls.” The man nods, then again to the soldiers, who lower their blasters.

“My name's Finn,” he says. “General Finn. What do you need?”

Doray's slightly taken aback. There's a warmth to the general's voice, a determination in his eyes, and he holds himself with confidence. He's a soldier through and through, a leader at a glance, but further down there's something else. A fear. _Interesting._

She gathers herself.

“My captain – Majod – requests your help. Our ships are disabled and stranded, our leaders dead or traitors. The Destroyer _Extant_ has fifty platoons of stormtroopers, sixty TIE pilots and a handful of higher command wishing to-” _defect_ sounds so wrong, “to leave the planet peacefully. And to bring as many of our people with us as we can. They may need convincing, or rescue. There are those want to fight with you.”

The general frowns.

“Fight with us? I thought the war was over.”

He meets her eyes, and she can see the same thought cross his mind as it does hers. _The war is never over._

He sets his jaw.

“Alright everyone, suit up and prepare to head back out there. We won the big battle. Let's go finish this war.”

His command is so compelling that Doray, without thinking, follows his orders.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for death of original characters and some thoughts that could be considered as suicidal ideation - to skip that it's between "She was right," and "Someone kneels down beside her."

Finn's weaving back through the teeming forest, repeating the order to scramble fighters when he runs into the exact person he wants to see – literally.

“ Rose,” he says, hands on her shoulders to steady her after they'd slammed into each other.

“ Finn!” she says, bringing a hand to rest on his arm, the other glued firmly to her commlink. “Are you sending everyone? How many people are we picking up, exactly?”

“ I – yeah. We don't really know what we're facing there.”  _ I have a feeling,  _ he doesn't say,  _ that we'll need our strongest gathering yet. “ _ I think we'll need anyone we can get, things could get rough very quickly.”

She nods, and they fall into a quick step, side by side.

“ We're signaling everyone who might still be in their ships, and I've sent runners to tell everyone who isn't,” she says, tapping a datapad which she seems to have summoned from thin air. “I've got no idea what kind of vessels we're looking at, obviously everything that came in with General Calrissian was a surprise, but it's a good problem to have. I'm working on a list so we know what we can use to fight and what we have just for shifting people. It's mostly combat ships so far, though. I should send another broadcast to our allies, or maybe Calrissian can go, see if we can round up more cargo or transports. And then -”

“ You still have to breathe, commander,” says Finn.

Rose huffs a laugh. “I know this is a good thing. It's incredible. But logistically, they could have picked a slightly more practical planet to finally turn on,” she says. “Or done it earlier,” she adds in a murmur.

Then she stops abruptly. Finn's moving so fast he's halfway across the clearing before he realises she's not at his side.

“ What is it?”

“ Oh, stars,” she breathes. “I just had an idea.”

“ What?”

She shakes her head, but her eyes are somewhere on the horizon. She's scheming.

“ I need to go figure this out,” she says, “but if you find a nav engineer in with your defectors, send them my way!” and she heads off into the trees with purpose.

“ Rose!” Finn calls, and she turns back. “You're coming with us? We need you.”

She smiles. “Right behind you, general. Now go! If you don't hurry up I'll get there first.”

Finn grins, and keeps moving, aiming for the Falcon.  _ Your defectors _ .

He'd never thought of himself as a defector. At first, he'd only really done what he'd had to do to escape. He'd had no intention of fighting back at his captors.

Then, by the time he'd stepped up and taken that first swing against Phasma, the Resistance and the people in it had felt so familiar, so ingrained in his soul that he could hardly believe he'd ever been on the other side.

He had, though. He had chosen to leave, then chosen to stay with this ragtag, passionate, and impossibly hopeful bunch. That scared stormtrooper might feel like a completely different person, but it was him.

And others had done the same. These troopers today and their captain, who'd rallied against their commanders when the orders came to destroy entire resisting planets, and the strange, sullen TIE pilot, trapped between wavering belief in a broken cause and an enemy she'd been programmed to despise. She'd come around though, eventually. Finn could feel it.

Jannah had done it, too – she'd refused to kill for them and taken her unit with her when she did, those survivors who'd heard of his designation number and leapt at the chance to fight with the Resistance.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Jannah appears, beckoning him from the bottom of the Falcon's ramp, and he quickens his pace.

“ I'm with you,” she says. He nods.

“ Did Lando talk to Rose?”

“Yeah, he's taken his shuttle out already.”

“She works fast.”

Jannah throws a grin over her shoulder. “You sure she's not force-sensitive too? How does she do so many things at once?”

“ Oh, no. She's just like that.”

Chewie's already in the pilot's seat, running through the pre-flight prep. Timid, a tall man from Jannah's unit with shocking blue eyes and a deeply dangerous aura, is strapping himself into one of the jumpseats. Jannah takes the other.

“ Are the rest of you coming?” asks Finn.

“ Yes, on different ships. I figured we needed as many spare seats as possible.”

“ Good. I want as many of us there as we can get.”

Timid speaks for the first time since Finn met him.

“ You mean, us traitorous, disgraceful scum?”

Finn's so surprised to hear the man speak that he doesn't get the joke for a moment, then he laughs.

“ Yeah, Timid, that's exactly what I meant.” He glances at Chewie, who whines – they're ready to go – and looks out over the chaos in the clearing, picking out the currents of activity, senses people's paths smoothing out and defining themselves, order swirling under the madness. He feels the energy, the  _ hope _ in the air as the Resistance rallies one more time.

“ Well, let's go get these traitorous disgraces,” he says. Behind him, Jannah throws her head back and whoops, and the Falcon soars up towards the darkness.

*******

“ Okay, air team, count off.”

“Fighter 2, go,” says Seftin.

Fighter 3, go,” says C’ai.

The awful silence where Snap's voice should be thrums like a black hole, tugging at Poe's heart, and he has to close his eyes while the others continue their count. He knows they're all feeling it too. Snap. Leia. Nien. Countless others. The raw loss suspended between them seems to drift, wind, coalesce into something, not solid exactly, but tangible. Something to fight for. Poe breathes.

“ Alright. See you on Exegol. We're not expecting TIEs when we get there but it's not gonna hurt to be prepared for them. We may need to take out one of their big guns again. We'll have to see what the scene is when we arrive and work from there.”

“ Copy, General,” says Wrobie.

“ And may the Force be with us,” adds Nimi.

_ Yeah,  _ thinks Poe. He eases his X-wing off the ground, and the others follow, light as the birds wheeling over the trees on Yavin 4.  _ I have a feeling we're gonna need it. _

The feeling doesn't diminish as he leaves the atmosphere and BB-8 plots out the route to Exegol for the second time in as many hours. He should have known the war wasn't over, but still. It had seemed for a moment like he might be able to sit down with a whiskey and his favourite people in the galaxy. The fight he's heading into makes sense on the surface, but he has to admit he's a little uneasy about rushing off so suddenly. It could so easily be a trap, to finish off the Resistance while their guard is down. If there are survivors, there are those who will fight and claw and buck like starving blurrgs, desperate to continue the work of the First Order. It could be those very people that they're flying to right now.

“ What the hell are we doing?” he mutters to himself, and flicks the comms settings.

“ Finn, what the hell are we doing?”

“ Going to Exegol?”

“ Yeah, I mean -” stars, this man was going to kill him one day. “I mean, we're really just running back because a TIE pilot told us to?”

“ I believe her,” Finn says. “I couldn't feel... well, she'd have been a lot friendlier if she was trying to trick us.”

Poe can see his face in his mind, all soft eyes and goodness just pouring out of him. He didn't understand how Finn had gone through what he had and was still willing – no,  _ eager _ to help people who, just hours ago, had been trying their very hardest to kill them all.

But Finn had been one of those people before, and he was a good man. The best he knew. If it was good enough for Finn, it was good enough for him.

“ I trust her, Poe.”

“ Okay,” he says. He nods, alone in his cockpit. “Okay,” he says again. “See you there.”

“ We can do this, general,” comes the reply. The title, and the smile in Finn's voice, do terrible things to Poe. His heart's jittery enough as it is.

“ Yes, general,” he says. BB-8 chirps – the route is ready. “See you there.”

Once the stars are whirling outside his cockpit, Poe closes his eyes.

“ Wake me up when we arrive, will you buddy?” The astromech burbles an agreement - it’s not the first time he’s asked them to do this - but Poe barely hears it. It's been over a day since he slept, and even the anticipation of another fight can't keep him awake. Space surrounds him, and he slips away.

*******  
  


The  _ Extant  _ is chaos. Doray's always hated disorder, but this is truly the worst. Flying in over the wreckage of hundreds of Destroyers was bad enough, and even once they'd reached the rows of those that the Resistance didn't get to the first time around, it didn't get any better.

Majod and her people have succeeded in taking the bridge. The majority of the troopers have joined her, but some remain loyal. They, along with some pilots and a few of the higher-ranked officers, are scattered throughout the upper six decks of the ship and refusing to cooperate, come quietly, or even just fucking  _ listen _ .

“ It's over, you fools, just drop your weapons! There's nothing to fight!”

“ Long live the Supreme Leader!” the reply bounces around the corner, shortly followed by a flash grenade.

“ Oh, you bastards, you kriffing-” Doray sprints for it and hurls it back at them. It's just clanged off the opposite wall when it goes off and she flinches away, pressing her eyes shut. The brilliant explosion still managed to send streaks of white dashing across her vision when she opens her eyes again, enough to make her balance shift, and she stumbles. Panic starts to stir in her chest. Stars, don't let it be permanent. Without sight, she can't fly, and without flight, she's nothing.  _ I can't be blind,  _ she thinks,  _ I can't they'll- _

Someone grabs her elbow and turns her back down the corridor, away from the noises of the battle, Resistance fighters running in to capture the loyalists while they're stunned from their own grenade.

“ You alright?” says the someone, and she blearily blinks as the rebel comes into focus. He's got a sharp chin and dark curls, a lot like hers, but he looks at her pityingly.

She yanks her arm out of his hand and for a second, she considers a haircut.

He holds up his hands. “Sorry, just checking.”

“ I'm fine,” she snaps. “Don't need your help.”

He raises an eyebrow and steps away.

“ Sure,” he says easily, and he moves to help his people secure the loyalists - she finds it’s about half a unit of stormtroopers, when she follows him. They're all on the ground and the Resistance are efficiently piling up their weapons and tying their wrists with makeshift binders. The man nods.

“ We seem to have this lot under control. Wrobie, take five people and make sure these folks get to the brig safe and sound. The rest of you, with me. Let's keep moving.”

There's a chorus of “yes, general,” and the fighters step to, continuing along the dark corridor behind the man. Interesting. A general fighting on the ground like this would be unheard of in the First Order.

The group, with Doray following, make their way through the stark metal corridors. The lights flicker in places, in others, they're off completely. Apart from the odd burst of yelling and blaster fire in some distant part of the ship, it's eerily similar to Doray's old walks around the flight barracks at night when she couldn't sleep. The echo of her footsteps had been the only sound, the walls a thin but impassable barrier between her and row after row of bunks, full of sleeping pilots and soldiers, lights dimmed to try to resemble night.

Her sight seems to be recovering, thank the stars, and the low lighting makes her head ache a little less. If she had lost her vision... she doesn't even want to think about that.

The soldiers surrounding her now don't talk, but move easily around and with each other as they check rooms. No one seems to want to come near her, though. They seem a little apprehensive about her presence, her uniform. So be it. They don't need to understand her.

But she watches as they walk together, signal and murmur to each other. The group ebbs and flows and always stays away from her until she finds herself beside the general again. She watches him warily out of the corner of her eye, and is more annoyed than surprised when he speaks. He seems like the chatty type.

“ I'm Poe,” he says, “Poe Dameron.”

She nods in reply.

“ And you are?”

She shoots him a look, and he makes a  _ humour me _ face.

“ I like to know who I'm fighting with.”  _ And what they're fighting for  _ goes unsaid.

She juts out her chin. “Doray Ourls.”

“ Pleasure to meet you.”

“ And I'm not fighting with you. I'm loyal to the First Order.” The First Order, who'd given her a hand up out of the dirt, a path to the sky, and gotten her away from her father. She would follow them anywhere for that.

“ Gotcha. So hanging out with the enemy, helping us do our job...”

This arrogant bastard.

“ I'm helping  _ my _ people. I'm with you because my captain asked me to talk to those remaining.” Had asked, again. Not ordered. “Because they'll be more willing to listen to one of their own, if I can reach them. They won't die at your hands.”

The general shakes his head.

“ We are on the same page, then. I'd rather not spill any more blood.”

“ Was it not Resistance forces blowing our ships out of the sky just hours ago?”

“Ships that were trying to kill us, and would have destroyed any planet that stood in the way of the First Order if we didn't intervene?”

“What are you talking about?” Suddenly, Doray doesn't care for this conversation. “Just let me do what I'm doing. Get out of my way,” and she storms on ahead.

He doesn't stop her, but does let out a soft sigh that she thinks she wasn’t meant to hear. Whatever. She doesn't need to be in his good graces. What does she care about Resistance generals? She answers to the Final Order, the greatest power in the galaxy. Her people are strong, and disciplined, and never look at her with pity in their eyes. Her fellow fighters -

\- almost catch her in the chest with a blaster shot, and she ducks into an alcove, swearing. Behind her, the Resistance fighters do the same. Doray peeks out to assess the situation and swears some more. A couple more bolts come her way from around the open blast doors. It's a pretty good place for the Order – they've got all the cover they need and can pick off anyone who tries to get near them.

Glancing back down the corridor, Dameron catches her eye and raises an eyebrow.  _ Do what you're doing. _ Asshole.

“ Listen,” she calls, “I'm with the First Order, Flight Officer Ourls. Your orders from Captain Majod are to stand down. Stand down and stop fighting.”

The reply is, to her pleasant surprise, not a hail of blaster bolts. Her heart stutters for a moment, in shock, in relief, when she hears:

“ Doray?”

“ Miskon?” Her squadron leader.

“ Thought you were dead, hotshot, where the hell have you been?”

Doray squeezes her eyes shut.  _ Get a grip, _ she tells herself. It's no surprise that he'd noticed her absence. He'd often catch her gaze in a crowd and smile a slow, broad grin at her, or seek her out to talk specs or the details of the latest holo – they shared a guilty pleasure in the terribly written romances. She was always grateful that her dark skin didn't show her blushing, but she'd been certain that he could feel the heat radiating from her cheeks on occasion.

And he's alive... and glad  _ she's _ alive.

“ I was... on a mission.”

“ And why are you running around with this Resistance scum?”

“ I – Majod sent me. To get them. We can't – she said they're our best shot out of here, with the nav down and no communication from the generals. Or the Supreme Leader. We have to -”

“ You mean you're working with them?”

“ No, I- I'm here as a Final Order pilot.” She takes a breath. “But they'll help us now. Come with them, with  _ me,  _ and-”

“ And they'll kill us all the second they can!”

“ No! They aren't going to hurt you!” she says. “They aren't.” She glances at Dameron.

He shakes his head. “No,” he says his voice loud enough to carry, “we're not. We don't have to. We don't have to fight anymore. This can be over.”

She holds his gaze as she repeats the promise to the soldiers. Miskon doesn't reply, and none of the others with him do either.

“ The Resistance will never be our allies.” His voice is cold, and something in her twists. She hardly recognises him like this, he was always so warm and passionate. Now it's like he's... talking to his mortal enemy.

Doray can't convince him.

“ Qamsi? Lucia? Who else is there? Majod sent me to get you, to get us all off this hellhole of a planet, just  _ listen  _ and come with me!”

No one calls back, but she can hear them muttering behind the door. Damn them all to hell, they'd always used to follow orders without question, why did her squadron mates have to pick now to get all democratic?

Then -

“ Let the Final Order reign supreme!” and that _ is _ Lucia, Doray can tell among the blaster shots, Lucia who's even shorter than her and is well-known for her almost permanent, slightly crazed grin. She could hear nothing of that smile in the other pilot's voice, just a terrible determination.

The bolts shoot past her in both directions now, but while the Resistance blasters are set to stun, her friends are firing with the full, red, killing glare. The corridor is full of yells and  _ screams.  _ She sees a Resistance fighter fall, and then another. Part of Doray instinctively wants to fire on her attackers, but she's frozen at the idea that she's fighting her friends.  _ Do something! _

“ Stop it!” she screams at the top of her voice. “Just stop, you can stop!”

She leans out to try and project further, to make them _ listen _ , but a shot zips right past her ear and she jerks back into the shelter of the alcove.

“ Oh, nice, two years together and you still try to kill me instead of listening, thanks, you kriffing  _ idiots, _ ” she snarls, but she can barely hear herself over the sound of battle. She feels so useless, curled up nice and safe. The Resistance fighters keep sneaking shots where they can, but with the superior cover of the blast door, she doubts they're getting very far. She should do something. But then, what? Even if she carried a blaster, she doubts she'd have the courage to fire on her friends, even stun shots. What a coward she is. Maybe her father was right. What had she done to prove she wasn't a waste of space, after all? Sat and whimpered in the corner - very impressive. She should just move. Do something.

An opportunity bounces into the corner of Doray's eye, and she seizes it without thinking, taking her chance to act, snatching up the flash grenade and hurling it back through the blast door. Like hell they're going to half-blind her again!

Only, as she's squeezing her eyes shut, her brain catches up with the weight of that little bomb. Not a flash grenade.

Her eyes fly open as the corridor rocks, and an orange flash lights up the stark walls.

Not a flash grenade. A real one.

There's a terrible, gaping silence from behind the blast door.

Doray's gaze is fixed on the wall panel ahead of her. “No,” she says. She shakes her head. “No,” she says again, but this time she moves.

A couple of Resistance fighters get there before her. She steps through the blast door behind them.

She was right. It had been her whole squadron. And a few pilots from another.

The blast had thrown them all towards the sides of the room. She sees little Lucia. Not smiling now. Qamsi is there. He'll never steal her caf ration again. Jui, and Fanbo, and Thereja. All dead.

They'd all been prepared to die, of course – but to die in the stars for the Final Order, to go down in a blaze of glory. Not like this. Not from a pointless grenade blast on a cold ship, fighting a battle where they didn't even understand what the sides were anymore.

Not killed by her.

Miskon's body is sprawled against the back wall. She drops to her knees beside it. His face is bloody from the explosion. Doray forces herself to look at it.  _ This is what happens, _ she thinks,  _ when you let yourself love. _

Who falls in love during a war?

But she had. Stupid. Still, she wants to take his hand. Now, when it won't make any difference. She doesn't move.

The rebels move around them, stacking blasters, checking the bodies, organising. They don't speak to her. She should stand up. Get out of their way, if she isn't going to be helpful. She doesn't. She isn't sure if she _ can _ move, at this point.

Stars, wouldn't it be so easy to just lie down next to Miskon and sleep? Just rest? Suddenly, it's all she wants to do. Her head aches, her chest hurts, and she has no idea what side of this battle she's on anymore. Miskon's face is a terrible sight, but truly, in that moment, she envies him. At least he got to die for what he believed in. At least he knew what he believed in. If Majod had never sent her to the Resistance, she'd have probably followed him to her death like the others. She would have preferred that. Instead, she's a traitor. A traitor who killed her friends, and has no idea where she stands

Someone kneels down beside her. Unsurprisingly, it's Dameron. She looks at him, dry-eyed, and he just looks right back at her, again with that fucking pity, and a hard set in his jaw.

“ Why did she send me?” she asks in a rough voice, after a moment. “I'm no good at talking. I'm just a pilot.”

“ Well,” says Dameron, “I like to think pilots can be good at more than one thing. What do you fly?”

As if he cares. “A TIE fighter,” she answers anyway.

“ Ah, they're quick little things. I had an... interesting time in one of those.”

He must be kidding. She should glare at him. She doesn't move.

“ Of course, that was before they had lightspeed. You got a new one with a hyperdrive?”

Doray scoffs. “I do now. I prefer the old standard.” She'd been excited when she'd been informed that she'd have a new post, a new ship. The specs for the TIE  _ whisper  _ were awesome – that was a beauty of a ship. It was art. The  _ vendetta _ sitting in her bay had not been a disappointment, exactly, but the powerful lines of the design could never make up for the drag of the hyperdrive and shielding. Miskon had loved his, though. She almost smiles at the memory of his enthusiasm.

“ I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I think about an upgrade, but nothing feels right the way a T-70 does, you know?”

She does glare at him then, out of sheer frustration. “That is not the same thing.”

“ Oh?”

“ The T-85 is faster than the older models. Nostalgia's no reason to discount that. But adding a hyperdrive to TIE just makes it sluggish in battle. It's a net loss. The ship itself, it's built for speed. Why ruin that for more range?” This is an old argument, and one that feels familiar. She could be sitting around the mess table, arguing specs with her friends. It’s calming somehow. She continues, “you want a fighter that can go further, build a new one. Don't compromise quickness for distance.”

“ I couldn't agree more,” says the general. He meets her eye again, and after a second, offers her his hand. “You ready to go?”

She looks down again, at the body that was once a man she loved.

“ Yeah,” she says, and takes it. 

When this is all over, she thinks as they continue down the corridor, she's heading into the stars, where she belongs. And she's taking as many people with her as she can.

***

When the door to the bridge slides open and Poe's team walks in, Rose gives herself a moment to be relieved. He's safe, and so are Wrobie and Teek. On top of that, they were the last team to come back, which means that all decks are now clear of loyalists. Sitting on the comms and tracking the Resistance's movements through the ship had been exhausting, her heart in her throat, certain that at any second any of the teams they'd sent might have been overwhelmed and murdered by the last of the First Order.

But they'd made it through with almost everyone, and there were three former bunkrooms serving as holds for the loyalists. Finn, Jannah, and her squadron are down there now, talking to them. Hopefully, they'd get a few more of them convinced, and they could mill around in the main hangar with the however-many platoons that are still left, waiting for a ship to get them off-planet.

Rose sighs. Back to the basic logistics, then. It's a lot less stressful than monitoring battles, and she actually finds an odd sort of calm in doing it - solving the puzzles, figuring out what needs to be where, keeping everything ticking over. When she's doing this kind of work, she doesn't have time to think about the people they'd lost, or the look on Finn's face when he told her to leave him, or when the hell this war is actually going to be over.

That is, if she doesn't get distracted. She shakes her head as if that will clear it, and turns back to the console.

She pulls the list of available ships back up. This destroyer must look ridiculous right now, a menagerie of fighters, freighters, transports and cruisers all perched and planted anywhere they could find space, waiting for room in the hangar to pick up some deserters and get back out.

Finn might trust these people, but Rose isn't so sure they aren't just jumping on a way out, and plotting to shoot them in the back the moment they're clear of the planet. A lot of the others were equally conflicted. They had agreed unanimously and without speaking a word that the troops couldn't go to Ajan Kloss. They had to regroup somewhere less chaotic, and then figure out the next step - and who was really on their side. The main goal now was to get everyone back off this terrible planet. Once Larma D'Acy had pored over the starcharts and found an uninhabited moon, about an hour and a half's jump away, things could really get moving.

Two fighters have just confirmed their takeoff. Time to get another starship in there. Rose glances down the list.

“ XS-800 freighter, this is Commander Tico. You are cleared to enter the hangar.”

“ Copy that, commander,” the pilot replies in a thick Sullustese accent.

Beside her, Wrobie has tucked herself under Larma's arm, and together, the pair monitor the ships headed to the moon. Their simple affection tugs at Rose's chest. It's a brave thing to love during a war, she thinks, and her hand automatically reaches for her crescent necklace. She's been afraid every day that Finn and Poe, Chewie and Wrobie, and all the pilots might not come back from their missions. She had watched Rey training and while it was awesome, imagining her in a fight for her life always filled her stomach with dread. Losing Paige had been hard enough, and the Leia-shaped hole in the room still threatens to overwhelm her completely. But to love someone so completely in the face of such inevitable loss was a level of courage that Rose wasn't sure she would ever reach.

She turns away from the couple to find Kaydel beelining for her, and lets go of her necklace.

“ Is everything alright?” she asks.

Kaydel purses her lips. “It's the supplies,” she says. “I've been looking at everything we've got, but even combining that with what we can afford to buy in, the state of the trade hyperlanes right now, it's going to be a real struggle to get enough to feed several thousand extra people.”

Rose frowns. “Okay. And we have to remember all the extra fighters who came with Lando...” she stops at the look on Kaydel's face. “I know it's all a mess right now. We'll figure it out. It's what we do!”

Kaydel smiles at that. “Yeah, we will.”

They've made a good team this past year – Rose is excellent at organising, Kaydel works best with people. They'd set up the base at Ajan Kloss together and passed many a sleepless night monitoring comms, which usually devolved into giggling fits over nothing in their exhaustion.

“ Hey, any luck with your nav engineer?”

“ No, I haven't heard anything from Finn yet.”

“ The captain might know someone.”

Captain Majod, the one who'd apparently kicked this whole affair off, stood on the other side of the bridge, near Poe but not actually speaking to him. Her pale white face contrasted against her straight black hair and sharp black uniform makes her look somehow slightly unnatural, and on the rare occasions she moves, it happens in an oddly fluid way.

“ I asked already,” Rose says, “she said the navigators all got killed in the battle.” She'd been surprisingly emotionless about it, towering over Rose and listing the dead without a flicker of expression on her face. Weird.

Rose would rather think of other things, like how they're going to feed several thousand people. She shakes her head. When those are your choices, you know it's a rough day.

“ What about the supplies here, on the destroyer?” she suggests. Kaydel raises her eyebrows.

“ Yes,” she says. “Getting them to the moon might be a hassle but there should be some... I'll go talk to the captain.”

“Ugh, better you than me. She creeps me out.”

Kaudel shrugs. “She's not too bad. She does seem to actually want the best for her people, which is more than can be said for the other Order bastards I've come across before.”

“ Go on then, go make friends.” Rose turns back to the console, but doesn't miss Kaydel's rude gesture.

“ I'm finding us food,  _ Commander _ ,” she says as she leaves, and Rose smirks.

The Sullustese freighter is still loading up, but she trawls through the list of ships anyway to find a suitable one to go in next. She's just selected a small shuttle and another Y-wing when the comms crackle, then whine painfully. Rose hisses at the pitch and pulls it away from her ear, then leans into the console, frowning. That signal has Final Order encryption, but it's coming through over a Resistance frequency. She taps the controls to process it and finally got a voice. The speech coming through is garbled, but she adjusts the frequency until it wavers into clarity.

“ -trooper ML-7917, onboard the  _ Reputer _ . Are you receiving?”

Rose blinks, starts, then fumbles for the controls.

“Yes, yes we're receiving!”

“ Oh, thank the stars,” comes the quiet voice. Rose gestures to Larma, whose eyes widen. She beckons Poe.

“ I broke away from my platoon,” continues the trooper, “but I got stuck in a comms room and picked up your signal. I'm so glad you're here.”

Rose's console is surrounded now. Everyone in the room holds their breath. She can't read the expression on Poe's face as everyone hangs on to the next words that come from the console.

“ I want to defect to the Resistance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long gap! Exams have been hell, but I am going to aim for updates every two weeks or so now everything's settled down. I hope you enjoyed this and my twitter is still @rosetricot!

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the lovely Lady Maisery song Order and Chaos! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Xw62pK_OU)
> 
> I have a massive plan for this, running for the whole time between the celebration on Ajan Kloss and Rey's visit to Tattooine.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'm on Twitter @rosetricot!


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